A new audit says the California Department of Finance warned the Parks Department about unreported surpluses as far back as 1999, but problems persisted.

Lawmakers ordered the audit last year after a hidden surplus
of tens of millions of dollars was discovered at the same time the
Parks department was threatening to close 70 parks.

Now, a new audit finds the Department fails to track spending
at each of California's 270 state parks.

"They were actually using outdated and incomplete cost data to
come up with these operating costs for these parks because they
don't track or budget at that level," says Margarita Fernandez with
the State Auditor's Office.

"So that made it even more difficult to measure what the impact
of these decisions were going to be."

Instead, operating costs were estimated based on geographic
regions using 10-year-old figures.

Fernandez says the State Auditor plans to release another report
later this year that examines staffing issues and vacation buyouts
in the Parks Department.